CYIL vol. 16 (2025)

PETR KONŮPKA Execution of the Court’s judgments of violation includes individual and general measures. The individual measures include the payment of the just satisfaction awarded by the Court and the possibility to request a reopening of the proceedings before the Constitutional Court pursuant to Section 119 of the Constitutional Court Act. The general measures are naturally of wider significance. Their essence consists in ensuring that a similar violation of the Convention will not occur in the future. General measures may take the form of changes in the case law of domestic courts, legislative amendments, changes in internal rules and practice, etc. The execution of the Court’s judgments is supervised by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. In 2024, the Czech Republic had seven judgments on the table for execution: D.H. and Others , 41 Komissarov , 42 Pálka and Others , 43 B.Ű. , 44 Sládková , 45 Janáček , 46 and V. 47 Last year, the Committee of Ministers closed its supervision of the execution of the judgments in Pálka and Others 48 and Janáček . 49 In the first cited judgment, the general problem had already been remedied before the Court’s judgment by the adoption of the Expropriation Act in 2006. In the second, awareness of the issue of adversarial proceedings and internal working procedures within the Constitutional Court were strengthened. 50 Last year, we focused more closely on the execution of the judgments in D.H. and Others and Komissarov . This year, let us look at the remaining three. The judgments in B.Ű. and Sládková raise the same issue – ensuring effective and independent investigation of arguable claims of ill-treatment by police officers. To strengthen the ability of members of the Police of the Czech Republic and the General Inspection of Security Forces (GISF) to recognise arguable claims of ill-treatment and to deal with them in accordance with the law, both institutions have amended their internal regulations. In May 2024, the GISF incorporated the issue of the definition and proper assessment of arguable claims and the obligation to conduct effective investigations in accordance with the requirements arising from the case-law of the Court and the Constitutional Court into the GISF Director’s Regulation No. 47 on the performance of tasks in criminal proceedings. The amended version of the regulation provides that as soon as the GISF becomes aware of an arguable allegation of unlawful use of force or verbal humiliation by police officers, it will, without undue delay, verify the truth of the information and conduct an effective investigation to clarify the matter. The investigation must also meet the requirements of independence, impartiality, promptness, and must be thorough and adequate. Similarly, in February 2024, the Police President amended his Instruction No. 44/2018 on internal control, data collection, reference surveys, and handling of submissions. The revised instruction now includes the definition of an arguable claim. It also provides that if a police officer investigating a report assesses that it contains information that can be considered an 41 Application no. 57325/00, Grand Chamber judgment of 13 November 2007.

42 Application no. 20611/17, judgment of 3 February 2022. 43 Application no. 30262/13, judgment of 24 March 2022. 44 Application no. 9264/15, judgment of 6 October 2022. 45 Application no. 15741/15, judgment of 10 November 2022. 46 Application no. 9634/17, judgment of 2 February 2023. 47 Application no. 26074/19, judgment of 7 December 2023.

48 Further information on the closure of supervision is available here: https://hudoc.exec.coe.int/eng?i=004-60715. 49 Further information on the closure of supervision is available here: https://hudoc.exec.coe.int/eng?i=004-63253. 50 See §§ 33–34 of the Janáček judgment.

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